Best way to exchange STORJ with BTC and ETH each month?

Node Operators
1

Hi,

Each month, after Storj Labs payment, I convert part of the STORJ amount in ETH and BTC.
In order to do that, I specified my Binance Storj address in my docker run commands. This way, when I receive the money, I can convert it into ETH and BTC and then send the amount in my personal wallet (BRDapp).

I think this process is not really optimized.
Plus, it’s particularly a hassle for tax purposes (at least in France). Even if in France, the money is taxable only if you convert it into Euros, you have to fill-in a lot of documents (to declare your exchange accounts, your exchanges, etc.).

So I would like to have your opinion on the best way to proceed.
What is important to me is that I want to be able to:

  • convert STORJ into BTC and ETH
  • in the end of the process, hold the money on my personal wallet (hardware or not) ; I don’t want to let my money on an exchange too long
  • minimize fees
  • avoid KYC exchanges
  • use a reliable exchange (i.e. avoid scams…)

Thanks a lot!

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2

Don’t do that, you don’t own that wallet and it is not guaranteed that Binance keeps this wallet assigned to your account. Get yourself a MEW wallet, if you don’t already have one.

You can use Coinswitch to swap your STORJ into another crypto currency. You will need a small amount of ETH in your wallet for the first transfer. At the end you could use somethng like Bitrefill to buy gift cards for a wide range of retailers…

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I don´t understand that. I think the system only knows about your cryptocurrency when you convert it to fiat (€, $…). Can´t see how can they know about my etherwallet until that. If I got it right, the transactions only become visible when you transfer some cash to your bank account. But yeah… there are lots of things about this I´m having a hard time to catch

that´s crappy, since usually you need to convert a significant amount of money as a minimal. Could be done to interchange StorJ Tokens and ethereum inside the SNO community? That would be interesting.

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4

I prefer Exodus or MyCrypto as a wallet. Exodus allows easy exchange between coins. The laws in the US for tax on crypto are a nightmare, too. When you mine crypto or exchange crypto for anything you are liable for tax.

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5

atomic wallet doesnt need ETH to exchange coins

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Actually, I made some big mistakes at the beginning because I exchanged my coins for Euros. Even if I didn’t transfer Euros to my bank account but used them to buy other cryptos, they are still taxable…
I also made the KYC…
Yes, I really did wrong. But at that time, I needed to buy some cryptos to try another project and thought it would be better idea to do it on an exchange I already knew. :confused:

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Thanks.
Why not just use MEW to make STORJ / ETH transaction?

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Yes, that’s what I meant. My point was that you’ll need some ETH in your wallet if you want to move STORJ around.

9

Lowest fees as well as no KYC would be a Metamask wallet address and Uniswap DEX.

Just make sure you make sure you check in with ETH Gas Station before exchanging tokens.

I typically wait until total transfer fee runs about $0.04 or so…

The fees on Uniswap are 0.3 % … yes, you read that right.

So, if you get $20.00 in STORJ and swap it for ETH or wBTC at uniswap, you’ll pay $0.06 + transfer fee as well as a guaranteed minimum exchange rate based on the smart contract of token pool. Sometimes, I actually get a higher valued output than my input based on the precise moment when the exchange occurs. However, my experience has been that uniswap is by far the best exchange platform.

I’ve tried exchanging with Uphold (for BAT), Changelly (for STOR), and Atomic Wallet Instant exchange… all of those exchanges seem arbitrary expensive as well as quite limited after I tried uniswap.

BTW… wBTC is ERC-20 wrapped Bitcoin, there’s no need to switch blockchains or worry about BTC KYC problems.

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Thanks.

And why do you say that only for the first transfer? I will need ETH each time I will try to transfer STORJ, right?

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11

Thanks for your advice.

  1. I tried to connect to my existing wallet (I already had one, created by MEW) with Metamask. But it seems that it doesn’t accept recovery phrase with 24 words… Only 12 words. I’m concerned about it because I think 24 words seed is more secure than 12 words seed. Am I wrong?
  2. Why do you recommend do use Metamask? How is it better than using another cold wallet, such as MEW (on which, by the way, I could create a 12-words seed and use it with Metamask).
  3. I read that metamask is a hot wallet, unlike MyEtherWallet, which is a cold wallet. I don’t get it because, since I own the private key (I have the 12 words seed, generated by metamask), shouldn’t metamask be considered as a cold wallet?

Thanks again for your help :slight_smile:

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Because then you have more ETH in there after the transfer :wink: Ok, I should have worded it differently.

Correct.

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Can you trust Bitrefill? I googled it once and found a number of very negative reports, which accused the site of fraud. Actually, the service of the site sounds very good. Then how do you get the gift cards? Do you have to print them out?

14

Depending on the retailer you either get a code or a link to a gift card by email. If you create an account with them, your gift cards will be stored in there too. I have had no problems with them whatsoever, but only bought a few Sainsbury’s and Tesco gift cards so far.

You can either print them out or save the barcode on your phone (I use the stocard app). I found that not all barcode readers in the shops can read it from my phone reliably. So I always have a printout as backup in my wallet.

15

If you want to use Metamask with MEW, you can export your private key from your MEW wallet and import it into Metamask. If you do export your private key, please do not post the private key anywhere online. Anyone with the private key can simply empty all your funds in the associated address.

On Seed Words and Wallet Recovery

Each wallet has a different method of encrypting your private keys in that wallet. The seed words regenerate the private keys in the wallet. Here’s an explanation. It’s written for bitcoin, but it applies pretty much the same to all seed word algorithms.

So, if you have a wallet that uses 24 seed words and I have a wallet that uses 12 seed words, the regeneration algorithm is different, but the private keys created will be compatible.

Please note: If the recovery seed words are entered, the regenerated private keys replace the contents of the current wallet. So, if you have a wallet that has some funds in it, and enter in the recovery seed words from another wallet, the current private keys will be deleted and replaced with the recovered keys.

Cold Wallet

The simplest definition of a cold wallet is a private key that is inaccessible from the blockchain network.

Examples of cold wallets:

  1. Paper Wallet
  2. Hardware Wallet

Any wallet solution that allows you to export the private keys can be converted from a hot wallet to a cold wallet. Simply export the private keys, print them out on paper… DON’T LOSE THE PAPER … remove or overwrite the hot wallet private keys for that address on your system, and you’ve got a cold wallet.

There are some online websites that generate a nicely formatted paper wallet. I don’t trust them… never enter your private key anywhere except in a wallet application you know well and have checked for trustworthiness.

Of course, there are some security folks who would also remove the memory module of the printer you used and smash that too… but I don’t think that’s necessary.

There are several tutorials online about printing out a private key and a public key. This is not necessary for Ethereum addresses. The public key and Ethereum address are algorithmically generated from the private key. It’s not a split key system like PGP. However, if you don’t know the public address of the wallet, you won’t know where to send incoming funds.

Personal Recommendation on Wallet Use

Any funds that you wouldn’t cry over for a year if lost them somehow, can be safely kept in a generic wallet application. If you want to exchange funds from one token to another, transfer the funds to a Metamask address and use Uniswap. Then transfer the funds back… or just import the private keys into Metamask. You can remove the private keys after the transaction is complete if you are worried about later compromise of your browser.

All wallets, except for a paper wallet, are subject to electronic theft of some kind. There are vulnerabilities in all software… and hardware wallets can also be compromised.

The only “safe” way to use Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens is to generate all keys and transactions offline and send the transactions to mainnet later. This can only be accomplished if one is running a local Ethereum node… which is extremely resource intensive.

I use and trust Metamask and Atomic Wallets. MEW is pretty much the same as Atomic Wallet. These three are fairly safe and quite well tested.

Further Reading:

  1. Ethereum Keys, Understanding Blockchain Keys Basis
  2. PGP RFC4880
  3. How to use My Ether Wallet generator offline
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thanks a lot

After reading this…
When I sign up in MEW, it recommended no to use the keystore file. So I downloaded an app to my phone, which I used to sign up in the web with a QR. Now I´m thinking, since the information is on my mobile phone, always online, it’s the worst thing to do, and yet, it´s the way recommended by MEW
¿¿¿???

from the same article. i´m thinking out loud… you can´t say anything like that about anything “real” in the world. If I kidnap you and make you give me your private key, thus stolen from you, it should be possible for you to sue me, because I robbed you. You can´t sue me for robbing you of your magical harry potter kind of powers, since such a thing doesn´t exist. But if I stole you, Fiat or criptocurrency, should be possible to be under the law. Until then, how can anyone take all this seriously, it´s like the wild west out there.

17

It is the Wild West… and that’s why some of us are here. It’s fun and the sense of adventure is awesome!

However, it’s rare to have a private key “stolen” directly from some device or software platform. Crypto funds are generally “stolen” through social engineering or compromised plugins/extensions.

Examples:

  1. A newbie crypto enthusiast installs a “new kind of wallet” that “just appeared” in the Chrome Store. However, the new wallet is actually just sending all the entered in private keys to someone sipping a martini in Tahiti…
  2. Someone gets an email requesting 0.5 ETH to prevent the public release of “a video of you doing something unsavory”

The problem of retrieving stolen funds is solved via KYC. I know many proponents of the Wild West of Crypto don’t like the idea of KYC… but that’s how to retrieve funds. In the actual Wild West, someone would see you robbing the bank… so, even the Wild West had a minimal “KYC” process.

Here’s a basic morality tale

18

@anon27637763

I tried to use uniswap to make a swap between Storj and ETH, using metamask (exchange 594 STORJ for some ETH with 0.5% fees).

After more than 1 hour, it seems nothing happened.
I notice a ETH transaction on my wallet for “- 0 ETH”. Etherscan states it as a “success”. But I don’t understand: my STORJ and ETH wallets have still the same balance.

Why did I do wrong?

Thanks for your help!

19

Did you set a gas limit manually? If you set that too low, the transaction can’t be completed, but you still pay transaction costs for the entire gas limit you set.

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I don’t think so but since this is the first time I use uniswap, I may have done something wrong.

I didn’t take a screenshot at the time I made the swap but here is what I did (new screenshot without confirming the swap):

Screenshot_20200610-133704_Chrome
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